


underneath the big top trees

by xx_bittersweet_merlin



Series: naruto wlw fics [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Friendly Rivalry, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 13:57:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13272894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xx_bittersweet_merlin/pseuds/xx_bittersweet_merlin
Summary: After yet another of their spars (aka Tenten demanding a rematch), Tenten and Temari have a conversation. They come away from it understanding each other a little bit better, and a little more interested in getting to know each other in ways that don't involve trying to skewer each other with sharp objects.





	underneath the big top trees

“Dammit!”

Even Temari, who’d caused it to begin with, winced a little at the loud crash that accompanied Tenten crashing through a few tree branches and skidding on the hard ground. It was the middle of summer, so most of the grass in the area had died off too; it wasn’t like it would have done much to cushion her fall, but still.

A moment passed and Temari idly wondered if she’d sent Tenten flying _too_ hard. She raised an eyebrow when the other woman shot out of the foliage, huffing and puffing like the angry big bad wolf. “That was a cheap shot,” she growled.

Temari rolled her eyes and gave the weapons mistress a little half smirk, toying with one of the many discarded kunai that littered the clearing with most of the weapons from Tenten’s scroll. “We’re shinobi,” she drawled. “We’re supposed to take cheap shots.”

“I know,” Tenten snapped, brushing leaves and sticks off her blouse.

Temari raised both eyebrows, this time, and gave her an unimpressed look. “You know,” she began slowly, tapping one finger on the wooden part of her fan, “you are the one who invited me out here, not the other way around.”

“I kn-” Tenten paused and sighed. Forcing herself to relax a bit, she pulled a twig out of her hair and rubbed at her shoulders where she’d collided with a rock. “I know. Sorry. I’m not trying to be, er…inhospitable. I’m just frustrated.”

 _At least she’s being honest,_ Temari thought to herself. She shrugged. “Not my fault you can’t beat me.”

Tenten’s eyebrow twitched. “I know,” she began in a growl again before checking herself and reigning in the anger. “Yes, I know. Can’t tell me you’ve never been frustrated when nothing seemed to work.”

“Well,” Temari began, letting a little amusement creep into her tone- poking at Tenten was fun, but they were both comparatively tired and she should probably give the other woman a break from the teasing. “Of course I have. Maybe you should look for a new way to try.”

Tenten shot her an eye-roll that was in slightly better spirits and gestured at the clearing around them. Yards and yards of her ninja wire was strung up on the trees, while her weapons were spread about on the ground or stuck in trees themselves, several of her scrolls lay discarded and crumpled up on the forest floor, and her favorite katana sat lodged in a training stump. “Not that I haven’t tried. We’re just overwhelmingly mismatched. It’s like fire being weak against water. And it’s just like last time,” she finished, a note of bitterness seeping into her tone as she glared at the ground.

It didn’t take Temari long to remember what she was referring to. It was already in her mind, in fact. “Yeah…” she said, trailing off and averting her gaze as they lapsed into an awkward silence. Tenten wasn’t wrong; though it wasn’t _impossible_ for her to theoretically beat Temari, their styles were simply on uneven ground. Tenten relied on being able to hit her target; Temari had an ultimate defense against it. Their first fight had been almost pitifully easy to win- and some part of Temari had been embarrassed about how she’d treated the other kunoichi afterwards for a while. Not that she wanted to admit it, but there hadn’t been any reason to toss Tenten aside like garbage, even if there were others around to catch her, and put her whole career- or even her life- at risk in the weapon-decorated arena. Maybe it was watching Gaara grow up. Maybe it was starting to teach kids. Temari knew she would be pissed if a genin did that to one of her students. “I wanted to talk about that, by the way.”

Tenten looked up at her with a furrow in her brow. “What, wanna gloat again?” she asked, rolling her eyes- they both did that a lot, didn’t they?- and planting her hands on her hips.

Temari shrugged and went for a look of nonchalance. “No. I just wanted to apologize for-”

“Apologize? For what?”

Temari glared playfully at her. “I was about to say.”

Tenten rolled her eyes- _again_ \- and motioned for her to continue.

“Anyway. I’m just sorry for tossing you after the match was over. I won and I’m not sorry for that, but doing that was a dick move. None of us- me and my brothers, I mean- were in very good places, but it was just…shitty. Sorry.” Temari hid any awkward apprehension she felt and hoped Tenten didn’t blow up or spit at her.

Tenten stared at her in surprise. She opened her mouth, looking like she was searching for what to say; it was an oddly amusing look on her. “Well,” she said after a few moments, sounding surprised. “Uh…thanks. I mean, I’m over it by now, but. Yeah. Thanks, Temari.”

She smiled and looked far more relaxed than she had at any point that day. She should smile more, Temari thought. “Well, now that I got that off my chest,” she said with a trademark smirk, concealing the small amount of relief- and surprise- she felt that Tenten was so forgiving, as she opened her fan a few inches and nodded at her companion. “Wanna go another round?”

“Ugh.” Tenten wrinkled her nose and looked to be considering it, but eventually sighed and shook her head. “Nah, I don’t think I should. I am _really_ gonna be feeling the burn tomorrow.” She rubbed at her back again with a cringe.

Temari clucked like a disapproving hen. “Aw, is that code for you’re too scared?”

“I am _not_ scared! I swear to fuck I’m going to beat you one day!”

“Keep dreaming, sweetie,” Temari purred. Tenten snapped her mouth shut and glared at her in an attempt to distract from the red dusting over her nose. _Now, that’s interesting_. “Want some help cleaning all this up?” She gestured at the mess around them. “I did help make it.”

Caught off guard again, Tenten coughed into her fist- an awkward tic- and waved her off. “No, it’s mine, you don’t have to-”

Temari closed her fan and leaned it against one of the stumps. “No trouble,” she said, letting nonchalance back into her tone and shrugging one shoulder as she pulled the katana out.

Tenten waited for a moment and then nodded, a bit awkwardly, and began to pick up her weapons. They worked for a few minutes in silence that felt a little more uncomfortable than before, for reasons neither really understood. Temari knew the other woman was glancing at her, but decided to wait for her to say whatever she obviously wanted to instead of prompting it.

“I do, uh.” Her predictions always came true when it came to these lovable Leaf do-gooders. “I do appreciate it. You, uh, apologizing.”

Temari paused and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I just meant I know it probably wasn’t easy to do,” Tenten rushed, glaring with no heat behind it.

Temari couldn’t resist teasing her. “Oh, are you saying I’m conceited?” Yet, she had to wonder how Tenten knew that- Temari wasn’t the most egotistical bastard out there, but saying sorry had never come easy to her.

“No! I just mean- I’m the same way, ok? I just meant- ok, yeah, it did bother me for a long time, ok, and I appreciate the apology.” The heat came back to Tenten’s cheeks. She fiddled with two shuriken in her hands and kept her eyes on them. “You’re a strong kunoichi. I…respect you a lot, I did even when I felt like I hated you, so it’s nice to know you care a little.”

 _Respect me?_ Temari was surprised, though she didn’t let it show. Interest bubbled up in her. “Respect?”

“Yeah!” Tenten huffed and shrugged, caught somewhere between trying to look unconcerned and dismissive and failing at both. “I’ve always taken this seriously! I’m on _Team Gai_. You don’t survive that without training your ass off.” A bit of a faraway look appeared in her eye. Temari winced inwardly; she must have realized her own wording and started thinking of the teammate that didn’t survive. “I even wanted to train under Tsunade-sama.”

“I don’t see you as much of a medic nin.”

“I’m not. It probably wouldn’t have worked out, anyway. Not much she could teach me outside of her strength and medical jutsu that anyone else couldn’t. But I still admire her. She was a legend.” Temari stared at Tenten as she stared at the ground, wonder and awe and a hundred other emotions flashing across her face. “To some no-name clanless girl that everyone told she shouldn’t try to be a kunoichi, that it was too dangerous, that she was too weak, she was a legend. Then she was the first female Hokage. No one took us seriously as genin. I didn’t want anyone to think I was some airheaded fangirl. This-” She paused to gesture to all her weapons around them. “Has been my dream since I was three, and I worked my ass off for it, so yeah, I really respect you.”

“…oh,” Temari managed to say after a long moment of silence. She’d had no idea that being a shinobi had meant so much in such a personal way to the other woman. It certainly made sense, when she thought about it, and she could understand. Though the Sand took a more militaristic approach to training their female students when Temari was a child, there had always been an undercurrent of expectation- that she wouldn’t be as strong as her brothers, that her job was to simply support whoever would become Kazekage, that she was just there as a buffer when Gaara had been bloodthirsty. Even now, people saw Gaara first- as they should- and then the siblings as a package deal, rarely considering Temari, on her own, with her own strength.

Tenten looked up at her with a flush. “I’m sorry, I totally overshared, didn’t I?” she blurted out, groaning and rubbing her forehead. “Ugh, stupid!”

“You’re fine,” Temari laughed. “I get it. For the record…” She winced a little inwardly; she felt _really_ sappy doing this, but she couldn’t just leave Tenten hanging. “I respect you too. I didn’t used to, but like I said…bad place. But you never give up. You keep trying. I’d say your constant dogged attempts to challenge me are annoying, but truthfully, they’re fun.”

Tenten’s eyebrows shot up. She looked almost hopeful. “Really?”

“Yeah, and hey, maybe one day you’ll come close to beating me.”

The twitch was back. Temari stamped down on the urge to laugh. “Oh, shut it, you!” Tenten shouted, pointing at her with the shuriken. A few snickers started to leak out. “I’m going to beat your dumb face in one of these days.”

“Aw, now we’re back to insults? I thought we bonded.”

“Stop misinterpreting everything I say!”

Temari laughed harder.

Tenten huffed and dropped her shuriken into one of her storage scrolls. She was struggling not to smile herself. Temari couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so honestly amused by something.

They finished cleaning up as Temari’s laughter sputtered out and faced each other to say goodbye, one leaning on a fan and the other leaning on a scroll almost too big for her. “Hit me up next time you’re in Suna,” she told Tenten, grinning. She’d realized a while back that she looked forward to their usual spars, and she definitely wanted to see Tenten again- perhaps in a more casual setting, sometimes. At the very least she was interested. “We can go out, have a vicious fight, get caught in a sandstorm, maybe catch dinner after.”

She could tell she’d caught Tenten off guard yet again, and her next words were typical testing the waters for confirmation. “Y-you don’t have to spend money on me,” she laughed, rubbing her neck.

Temari winked at her. “Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with a cutie like you?”

Startled, Tenten gawked at her with a blushing face and wide eyes. “Oh- I- I thought- you and Shikamaru?”

Temari shrugged one shoulder, unbothered by the other woman’s curiosity; her and Shikamaru _had_ generated some rumors for the mill. “Never quite dated, decided we had different life goals, still friends.”

“Oh.” A tiny smile began to grow on Tenten’s lips. She looked away and fiddled with a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun. Temari actually found it quite cute, a surprise even to herself. “Well. In that case…sure. Dinner. Yeah. Right.”

“Only if you promise not to try and stab me with your chopsticks. I’m sure you could make it lethal somehow.”

Tenten met her eyes again with a wide grin, eyes dancing at the playful mock challenge. “Stabbing’s not the _only_ thing I’m good for,” she joked, her innuendo adorably subtle. Temari chuckled and matched her smile.

“Then you’ll have to show me,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning down and kissing the other woman’s cheek. She cast her one last smirk and started walking towards the path that led back to the village, knowing Tenten was staring after her looking just a little bit star-struck.

She had to admit, she felt a little star-struck herself.


End file.
